Essay

Critiquing a Sub-Optimal Choice

Consider a student whose trade-offs between 'hours of free time per day' and 'final exam score' are represented by a feasible frontier. The student's personal preferences are shown by a set of indifference curves. The economically optimal choice, where the feasible frontier is tangent to the highest possible indifference curve, corresponds to 18 hours of free time and a score of 84.

However, the student actually chooses a different combination on the feasible frontier: 20 hours of free time and a score of 75.

Critically evaluate the student's choice. First, explain why this choice is considered sub-optimal from a purely economic standpoint using the concepts from the model. Second, propose and justify a plausible real-world reason that might explain why the student made this particular choice, even though it results in lower satisfaction according to the graph.

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Updated 2025-07-22

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Library Science

Economics

Economy

Introduction to Microeconomics Course

Social Science

Empirical Science

Science

CORE Econ

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